Football Russia
October 24, 1897 - the first football match in Russia took place in St. Petersburg. At first, this game, which was called "English air game" or "foot ball", was perceived as fun for the public.
At the end of the 1890s, there were three teams in St. Petersburg - Nevsky Club, Nevka and Victoria. And they were composed mainly of the English, who “brought” football to Russia at the end of the 19th century. But gradually the “football virus” infected Russians as well. The first teams were created, championships in St. Petersburg and Moscow were held, and even the first international matches were held.
The first football team, which consisted only of Russian players, was created in 1897 in St. Petersburg at the “Circle of Sports Lovers” (later it became known as “Sport”). And the first real football match took place on October 24 (12 old style) 1897.
That day, on the parade ground of the First Cadet Corps, the teams of the Vasileostrovsky Society of Football Players (VOF) and the “Circle of Sports Lovers” met. The latter lost with a large score of 0:6. The Vasileostrovsky football players' society had already existed for 6 years by that time. Therefore, this team consisted mainly of Englishmen, who played much better than the Russians at that time.
By the way, football was not yet attractive enough to the public. This is probably why history has not preserved for us either the authors of the goals scored or the number of spectators present at this first match. But the press did not ignore this game. St. Petersburg journalists wrote about the last match: “The British were distinguished by their teamwork and technique, and the Russians by their dedication.” According to the conditions, the competition was to last an hour and a half with one break.
This is how the Petersburg Leaf newspaper described the meeting: “Vasileostrovtsy, dressed in blue, placed five “skirmishers” on the fore-worth line. They had three on the second line. These were guard posts. In front of the city, or rather its gates, stood two “beks”. Finally, in the city itself stood its defender.”
If we talk about the rules, the matches of that time were characterized by extraordinary cruelty. The players fought knee-deep in mud and played with virtually no rules. Therefore, football players often left the field without teeth, with broken arms and legs. And the game was unlike modern football. For example, the ball rarely stayed on the ground, flying through the air from player to player and from goal to goal. And the defenders tried to hit the ball as high as possible. And the highest “candle” even caused approving applause from the public.
Goalkeepers rarely caught balls, trying to simply hit them with their hands, and goalkeepers with their feet, without trying to fall to the ground correctly. At the same time, it was considered especially chic to hit a flying ball with your fist somewhere in the center of the field or to hit the ball from above with your fist and ricochet off the ground “to light a candle.” This is what aroused the wild delight of the stands.
As for forwards, for a striker it was considered the highest valor to push the ball into the goal together with the goalkeeper. Football referees turned a blind eye to pushing, poking, kicking, tripping and even tackling from the rugby arsenal, as this was considered a manifestation of true sportsmanship, courage and athleticism.
The international debut of football players from the Russian Empire took place in October 1910, when the Czech team Corinthians (Prague) visited the country. In 1911, the first attempt was made in Russia to create a football team from representatives of several cities. The reason for this was the arrival of the Olympic champions of that time - the British team (in Russia they competed under the name “English Wanderers”). Until this day, the teams of Moscow and St. Petersburg had experience of international meetings, but it was extremely insignificant, and the team of another country had never played against us.
And suddenly, at the invitation of the British living in St. Petersburg, the founders of football themselves come. Newspapers wrote about the first of these matches: “Long before the start of the game, the public began to gather, and by five o’clock in the afternoon all the stands were overcrowded. There is a lively conversation in the audience about the upcoming game. Nobody talks about the possibility of the Russians winning the match, but only about the results under which Russia will be beaten.”
It is now difficult to say definitively how many games were played. There are two opinions on this matter. First, the matches that took place on August 20, 21 and 22, 1911 in St. Petersburg ended in crushing defeats for the Russians - 0:14, 0:7 and 0:11, respectively. Secondly, on August 22, 1911, the Russian team played its first international match, which was a friendly match with the England team. This meeting was not included in the registers of the Russian Football Union and the International Football Federation - the list of official matches of the Russian national team. And its result is unknown.
The country's first football championship took place only in 1912. At the same time, the All-Russian Football Union was formed, which was admitted to FIFA in the same year. In 1913, the All-Russian Football Union united football leagues of 33 cities and 155 clubs with a total number of football players of about 8 thousand.
And then the First World War began, and somehow they forgot about football in our country. But they remembered him after the Revolution and the Civil War. In 1923, the RSFSR national team made a victorious tour of Scandinavia, beating the best football players from Sweden and Norway. Then our teams met many times with the strongest athletes in Turkey. And they always won.
1930-40s - the time of the first fights with some of the best teams in Czechoslovakia, France, Spain and Bulgaria. And here our masters showed that Soviet football is not inferior to advanced European football. Goalkeeper Anatoly Akimov, defender Alexander Starostin, midfielders Fedor Selin and Andrey Starostin, forwards Vasily Pavlov, Mikhail Butusov, Mikhail Yakushin, Sergei Ilyin, Grigory Fedotov, Pyotr Dementyev, were generally considered to be among the strongest in Europe.
And in 1956, the USSR team won Olympic gold. But that, as they say, is a completely different story...
In mid-April, the birthdays of Spartak and Dynamo were celebrated, and Soccer.ru is in a hurry to talk about the age of domestic teams - popular and forgotten in the second divisions.
The oldest clubs in Russia
"Banner of Labor" (Orekhovo-Zuevo)
Other names: KSO, “Morozovtsy”, TsPKFK, “Orekhovo-Zuevo”, “Krasnoe Orekhovo”, “Red Tekstilshchik”, “Red Banner”, “Zvezda”, “Sly Foxes”, “Orekhovo”, “Spartak-Orekhovo”.
The “oldest football club” in Russia will celebrate its 108th birthday this year. Now “Znamya Truda” occupies the penultimate place in the “West” zone of the second division and certainly cannot boast of financial well-being. The first football match in Orekhovo-Zuevo took place back in 1887, and the starting point of the team is considered to be 1909, when the “Orekhovo Sports Club” was established with the direct participation of English workers of the Morozov manufactory. “Znamya Truda” won the Moscow Football League four times back in the days of Tsarist Russia, and the 1962 USSR Cup final, in which Shakhtar Donetsk was stronger, is considered the highest achievement.
"Kolomna" (Kolomna)
Date of foundation: 1906 (111 years)
In fact, Kolomna can lay claim to the title of the oldest club in Russia, but this Moscow region team has a very complicated history, which included ups and downs, deprivation of professional status and years spent in amateur leagues. In its current form, the club has existed since 1997, when Avangard (the same successor to the Kolomna Gymnastic Society, founded in 1906) and Oka, which dates back to 1923, were merged. Now two clubs that can be considered the oldest in the country are outsiders of the second division: “Kolomna” is only a couple of points ahead of “Znamya Truda” in the “West” zone.
"Chernomorets" (Novorossiysk)
Date of foundation: 1907 (110 years)
Other names:“Olympia”, “Dynamo”, “Builder”, “Cement”, “Trud”, “Gekris”, “Novorossiysk”.
The affairs of “Chernomorets” in the “South” zone are not so deplorable - the Novorossiysk team takes sixth place. Chernomorets was created in 1907, but the team began to compete in the USSR championships only in 1960. The “sailors” flourished already in the Russian Championship, where they twice took sixth place and even took part in the European Cup. In 2005, the club lost its professional license, and even bore the name “Novorossiysk” for some time, until it returned to its usual name.
Who is older from the popular Russian teams?
CSKA (Moscow)
As you may have guessed, the age of Russian clubs is a flexible concept. There are too many historical troubles, take for example the transition from Tsarist Russia to the USSR, and then to Russia, the peculiar structure of sports clubs. This is not England, where clubs do not change their names for a century and a half and are “registered” at the same address. All in all, CSKA, according to the official version, originated from the football section within OLLS(Society of Ski Lovers). Therefore, the army team will celebrate its 106th birthday at the end of summer.
"Spartak Moscow)
Spartak celebrated its 95th birthday yesterday, although enthusiasts dream of linking the history of the popular Moscow club with the RGO (Russian Gymnastics Society), so as to consider 1883 as the year of its founding. You can count anything, though closest to the truth is an as yet unnamed date - 1935, when the chairman of the Komsomol Central Committee, Alexander Kosarev, created a physical culture and sports society, which received the name “Spartak” at the suggestion of Nikolai Starostin. Today’s club’s connection with this “Spartak” is obvious and beyond doubt, but 80-odd years is somehow not enough, don’t you think?
Dynamo (Moscow)
The bitter rivals Spartak and Dynamo have the same birthday – April 18. Only Dynamo seems to be a year younger. But the “blue and white” have an absolutely undeniable date of formation, because it was on that day that a sports society called “Dynamo” was created. Everything here is fair and no flirting with history, although the “blue and white” could, if they wished, also go back to the imperial period, associate themselves with the KFS (or some other abbreviation) and declare 1907 as the founding date.
Lokomotiv (Moscow)
The team that later became Lokomotiv was founded at the Moscow-Kazan Railway under the name “Kazanka”. This version became official about a year ago, when Loko suddenly “aged” by 14 years, because before that the founding date was considered to be 1936.
Zenit (St. Petersburg)
At one time, controversy flared up around the date of birth of Zenit. The commission was asked to choose from five proposed dates, the earliest of which was 1914, when the Murzinka team appeared. However, the connection was not proven, and at first the commission decided to consider 1936 as the date of birth of Zenit, when the first union championship took place, and the voluntary sports societies Zenit and Stalinets appeared. Soon this decision was revised, and Zenit added 11 years to itself, because in 1925 the first football teams appeared at the Stalin Metal Plant. Funny argument, as in many other cases. It is possible that in a few generations Russian clubs will give up looking for opportunities to give themselves a few years to gain respectability, and will begin to strive for the integrity of history, but now this is the fashion.
Just a century ago, the now popular football was far from the most famous sport. At least in Russia, only at the beginning of the 20th century did it make its way, and, surprisingly, came to life both as a sport for the “highest circles” of society, and as entertainment for the proletarians - the so-called “wild” football.
You can learn about how different classes perceived football differently and how the British diaspora played it in Russia from Sergei Arkadyev’s book “Another Football is Possible.” VATNIKSTAN publishes an excerpt from his work, published last year by the Pulp Fiction publishing house.
“Kashnin showed football. Playing ball with your feet. We split into two camps. Each camp had a gate. There is a guard at the gate. The essence of the game is to get the ball into the opponent's goal. And do not touch the ball with your hands. But there is a great temptation to grab the ball, throw it and win! But this is impossible!”
(Newspaper “Responses of the Caucasus”, Armavir, No. 5, October 3, 1909)
Today we can only guess about when football was first played on the territory of modern Russia. The Russian Football Union uses October 24, 1897 as a starting point - the day when a match took place in St. Petersburg between the teams of the Vasileostrovsky Society of Football Players and the Circle of Sports Amateurs. The meeting came to the attention of the then press. What gave it a special twist was that the Vasileostrovsk team, which won with a score of 6–0, consisted entirely of British players, while the KLS (or simply “Sport”) also included Russians.
Overseas fun
Europeans, especially the British, played leading roles in Russian football in the next decade. In the first unofficial cup tournament in St. Petersburg, held in 1901, the English and Scottish teams fought in the final. In Moscow, the undefeated British Sports Club dominated. Its chairman was the director of the stearin plant in Lefortovo, Godfray, and only British subjects were accepted as participants, and there was no end to them. By 1910, the number of club members numbered as many as 180 people.
Young Russian capitalism needed energetic foreign managers. The posts of directors of newly opened enterprises were occupied by guests from Western Europe. Along with them came specialists, engineers, accountants, and office workers who served in the same enterprises and, after work, played the popular game of football in their homeland.
Match between the national teams of St. Petersburg and Stockholm. St. Petersburg, April-May 1913
They say that a certain magazine “Samokat” wrote about such games of colonists back in 1868. Nikolai Travkin in his “Anthology of Football of the Russian Empire” refers to the “Yearbook of the All-Russian Football Union for 1912,” which states that in 1878, matches were held in Odessa between the team of the Odessa British Athletic Club with teams of British ships, port employees and Romanian club Galati. In 1879, the “Charter and Rules of the English St. Petersburg Football Club” were published. Mentions of “respectable-looking” Englishmen playing football on the field near the V.Ya. machine-building plant. Gopper and Co,” found in the Moscow press for 1895. But all these were publications from the “their morals” series. English and German colonists lived separately in Russia, and therefore the game remained popular only in their circles.
The fourth, after Moscow, St. Petersburg and Odessa, the center of the origin of football in Russia was the village of Orekhovo and its surroundings (the territory of the modern city of Orekhovo-Zuevo), which at the end of the 19th century belonged to the Vladimir province. In a village with strong Old Believer traditions, manufactories of the Morozov family opened. The manager of the enterprises, the Englishman James Charnock, a former member of FC Blackburn Rovers, and his brother Harry tried to organize a football club in Orekhovo back in 1887. However, the Orekhovo sports club was officially formed much later - in 1908. By that time, there were already several dozen registered teams in Russia. Football was played in Kherson, Nikolaev, Kharkov, Riga, Tver, Saratov, Astrakhan, Blagoveshchensk and Port Arthur.
First steps
The first journalistic review of a football match, as mentioned above, was published in the capital's press in 1897. The author of the Petersburg newspaper, justifying the Russian players, wrote that their rivals - the English team "Vasileostrovtsy" - have been playing together for 6 years. At the turn of the century, football in the city on the Neva received strong development. Since 1901, a league founded by the Englishman Ivan Richardson began operating in St. Petersburg.
The first official Moscow club was the Sokolniki Sports Club, organized in 1905. A few years earlier, an international group of enthusiasts led by Roman Fulda began to gather at Thornton’s dacha in Sokolniki to hone their skills in playing ball. Until his emigration to Germany in 1922, Fulda played a colossal role in the history of the development of football in Russia, was the first to translate the rules of the game into Russian, donated his money for the cup for the Moscow championship, and even served as the second coach of the team at the Olympic Games in 1912. Fulda, together with his associates, became a member of the commission for organizing outdoor games at the Moscow Hygienic Society and asked for the opportunity to hold matches in Sokolniki.
Soon the games moved to the neighboring Shiryaevo Field, which gave the team a second unofficial name. No one had any equipment. The soccer balls were ordered from the UK. Andrey Savin in his book “Football Moscow: People. Events. Facts” gives the memoirs of one of the pioneers of Russian football, Leonid Smirnov, about how it all began: “We, the first football players, had no idea about sports shorts, T-shirts and boots. We played in our usual costume: long trousers, simple shoes, and some even boots... Many years passed before we got to panties, boots and T-shirts. None of us dared to bare our knees for a long time. Such was the time then, morals were completely different!”
It is curious that the first team to dress in a football uniform was the Bykovo children's club, which over time became, in modern terms, a farm club for Sokolniki. The Bykovo team got its name due to the dacha area in which it was located. Shiryaev Pole players came here to relax for the summer, continuing their training. In order to have someone to practice with, the Shiryaevites taught local youth the game. Parents of young football players, who considered that it was too expensive to buy another set of trousers for their children to play football, decided to sew them a short uniform (so as not to tear) themselves.
But it was not the uniform or equipment that was the most expensive. A football club membership card cost a lot of money. For example, in SKS the one-time entrance fee was 20 rubles, and the annual membership fee was 30 rubles. For comparison, 20 rubles at that time was the average salary of a factory worker or a low-ranking employee. Football clubs united the elite of society, children of wealthy families. Many teams refused on principle to recruit commoners to their ranks. The Orekhovo club was actually the first team to play for the workers: the grimy Orekhovo men who occupied seats at the team’s home stadium were very different from the handsome gentlemen who attended football “parties” in the capitals. But the liberal owners of the Nikolskaya Manufactory preferred to look for players on the side, even placing an advertisement in the English newspaper The Times that the company needed workers who could play football well. By the way, the foreigners who arrived were enough for two teams. But Russian workers began to “get infected” with football quite quickly and over time began to make their way into teams.
In the summer, many players went to their dachas, where they continued playing football, from time to time making trips to other dacha areas: Bykovo - to Tarasovka, or Losiny Ostrov - to Mamontovka. There were often not enough players, and the football players looked for strong guys from local villagers, artisans and workers. Summer was ending, the summer residents were leaving, and the locals, who had gained experience, taught their other fellow countrymen to the new game, many of whom then went to work in the cities.
Call of the people
Over the years, football has become more and more widespread and popular. Intercity and international friendly matches took place in Russia. They played not only on large football fields, of which more and more were opening in the two capitals, but also in the courtyards of educational institutions and near factory walls.
“Young” football was a tough sport. “The game went off without any misunderstandings, which happens extremely rarely at football matches,”- wrote one of the reporters of that time. There were fights between rivals, between spectators and players, beatings of referees, attacks on football players outside the football fields. The relationship between the representatives of the working class who were included in the official teams and the nobles who formed the basis of the clubs can be judged by the fact that on the agenda of the founding meeting of the Moscow Football League, held on June 12, 1910 in the Hermitage restaurant, one of the items touched upon moral issues in football. “Teams can bring together people from different classes - rich and poor, nobles and burghers, business owners and workers, intellectuals and commoners. But when coming to training or a game, everyone should forget about their origins. Forget sincerely, with all your soul, so that it does not manifest itself in small things, in tone, in the manner of speaking,”- Mikhail Sushkov, a famous Moscow football player who was present at that evening, recalls the decision of IFL functionaries.
Match "Morozovtsy" - "British" August 26, 1912 Nevertheless, the bourgeoisie and the nobility continued to jealously guard football as “their” game. It was even proposed to consider the few working-class football players, as more physically developed, as professionals and on this basis to prohibit them from playing in the formally amateur Moscow and St. Petersburg leagues. Meanwhile, an alternative movement of “wild” teams blossomed in the cities.
“In the working-class neighborhoods of the city outskirts, there have long been many football clubs, which included workers, employees, students, who were unable to pay the rather high membership and entry fees provided for by the charters of registered clubs, to purchase expensive sports uniforms and equipment, and who did not have influential acquaintances who could give recommendations necessary for entry,”- writes Andrei Savin in the book “Football Moscow: People. Events. Data".
The “wild” occupied vacant lots, constructing barbells from sticks or crumpled caps. Instead of soccer balls ordered from Europe, rags stuffed with paper were used; sometimes the balls were made of leather; in this case, the role of the camera was played by a bull's bladder. The legendary Soviet football player and coach Andrei Starostin recalled that he himself began to play on the Khodynskoe field, which was one of the centers of Moscow “informal” football. “All the “stars” of the early generations of our football went through the school of education in “wild” football,”- the player wrote in his book “Flagman of Football”.
Gradually, permanent “wild” teams were formed, with their own form, their own history, their own “stars”. Teams were formed mainly on territorial and professional grounds. Just look at the name of the strongest Moscow team in 1912 - “House No. 44”! The names were invented without the pathos and officialdom of the “big” colleagues. For example, in Kharkov there was a football team “Tsap-Tsarap”.
The politicization of these amateur associations is an unexplored issue. Researchers usually emphasize the apoliticality and heterogeneity of “wild” teams. But how apolitical could their participants have been in the period between the revolution of 1905 and the strikes of 1910–1912? Class antagonism was felt even in the context of street play. Anyone who claims that football was specifically instilled in the proletariat in order to distract them from politics and the fight for their rights should keep a couple of points in mind. Illegal games on makeshift fields were more than once dispersed by the police, who were wary of any meetings of proletarians outside working hours, and representatives of official clubs from the upper strata of society tried to put a spoke in the wheels of the “savages”, in every possible way hindering their development. Referees were prohibited from refereeing plebeian games, and league membership and entry fees were constantly inflated in order to prevent representatives of the new wave from entering their society.
"Chesnokovites"
But there were enthusiasts who were ready to invest their energy in the development of workers’ football. In 1912, the Zamoskvoretsk League of “wild” teams appeared in Moscow. It was organized by Judge Allenov, and the events of the championship were regularly covered by the printed publication “K Sportu”, thanks to the player and chronicler Boris Chesnokov who worked there. His brief biography is presented in the excellent book by American sports historian Robert Edelman, “Moscow Spartak. The story of a people's team in a country of workers."
Chesnokov was born into the family of a railway employee. As a child, he and his family often moved from city to city because of his father’s work. Boris was fond of various sports and at a very young age, as a student at the Moscow 4th gymnasium, he first tried himself on the football field. Having fallen in love with the game with all his heart, he continued to play with friends in the yard, and later on fields cleared and equipped on his own. Boris and his two brothers - Ivan and Sergei - organized meetings of amateur work teams, subsequently formalizing the emerging society into the Rogozhsky Sports Circle (RSC). This is how the first workers' sports club in Russia appeared.
It existed until 1915 and was dispersed by the police. Having destroyed the community, the repressive authorities were unable to destroy the passion for the game, which embraced ever larger circles of workers. And Chesnokov did not give up, continuing to support workers’ football. In 1916, he became chairman of the citywide Moscow Football League of “wild” teams. Working in the editorial office of the K Sportu magazine, he not only covered news from the fields of unrecognized championships, but also addressed the official football structures of Moscow, urging them to take a step towards the “wild ones”. Thanks to his contacts, Chesnokov brought the main RKS players into the Novogireevo football club, including himself. After that, the club became the city champion twice, moreover, the first champion to play without foreign players. Even the formidable Morozovites remained behind them. In 1917, Boris Chesnokov suffered a leg injury and was forced to end his football career. He continued to write his sports notes and eventually became the first sports columnist for the Pravda newspaper.
Football team of the city of Pereslavl-Zalessky. 1913 As can be seen from the chronology, neither during the First World War, nor during the days of the revolution and the Civil War in Russia did they stop playing football. But time has left its mark. In 1914, all German players of Russian teams (at that time the Russian championship was already being held) were exiled to the Vyatka province under martial law. The English masters soon also chose to return to their homeland, but this could not in any way affect the popularity of the game. The matches of the national team stopped and were replaced by games between soldiers and prisoners of war.
In the first post-revolutionary months, there was a real “boom” of “wild” football. Unprecedented opportunities opened up for the players who once kicked homemade rag balls, and many of them became famous football players in the future. Since 1918, teams began to appear in the Moscow Football League whose participation in the championship during the Tsarist years was simply impossible, for example, the Jewish sports club Maccabi. Football survived the ruins of the empire, still standing on the shoulders of enthusiasts. But there were still about 10 years left before it was fully accepted by the new Soviet government.
The history of Russian club football is diverse. Many of today's fans probably think that football in our country began with Spartak, Dynamo, or, in extreme cases, Lokomotiv. In fact, of the famous current clubs, only CSKA has the right to be considered a team that can truly be called the oldest. And the patriarchs of Russian football were completely different glorious clubs, which many have not even heard of now.
5 FC Znamya (Noginsk) – founded in 1911
In 1911, the city of Noginsk was called Bogorodsk. It was here that one of the first real football fields in the country was built. The first district football team of the Glukhov manufactory was also created here. The sports team represented the small village of Glukhovo, which later became one of the microdistricts of the city of Noginsk near Moscow.
The club reached relatively high achievements only in 1936. Already under the proud name “Red Banner”, the team took part in the historic first USSR Cup and even reached the semi-finals, but at this stage they lost heavily to Dynamo Tbilisi with a score of 1:5. Subsequently, the club played in the lower divisions.
The best achievement of those years was second place in the second zone of class “B”, which was taken in 1959.
In the early nineties of the last century, Viktor Laptev, a man who really loved football, became the mayor of Noginsk. On his initiative, the club was recreated under the name “Avtomobilist”, since the team was financially supported by the Moscow region enterprise Mostransavto. At first the club participated in the KFC competitions, but already in 1993 it won the national championship among amateur clubs and, having received professional status, began to participate in the championship of the third league of Russian football.
Avtomobilist’s highest achievement, like its predecessors, also came in the Cup, now in Russia. In 1997, the team reached the 1/16 finals, where Oleg Romantsev’s Moscow Spartak was waiting for them. It was no longer possible to win here, but the cup match in Noginsk remained in history not by the score, but by the massacre at the stadium between the local riot police and Spartak fans because of an explosive package thrown onto the field. The law enforcement officers won, completely (!) clearing the guest stand in a few minutes.
In 1998, the club from Noginsk already won the second division championship and even played in the play-offs for promotion to the first league, but lost to Spartak-Chukotka on aggregate in two meetings.
After some time, due to financial problems, the club was deprived of its professional status and played at the regional level. In 2010, it was given the final historical name “Znamya”, and in 2011, in the year of the centenary of its formation, it was entered into the Russian Championship in the 3rd Amateur League, where “Znamya” still plays. By the way, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Alexander Samedov play for the club at the amateur level.
4 PFC CSKA – founded in 1911
The history of this club also began in 1911. A football section was organized in the society of ski (!) sports lovers. And in the first match, the “OLLS” team defeated their opponents with a score of 6:2 in the Moscow championship. In 1923, specialized teams from various departments began to be created in a socialist country. The team was named “OPPV” - Experimental Demonstration Site of Vsevobuch, which was supervised by the Red Army.
In 1928, the Central House of the Red Army was opened in the capital, where the command was transferred, renamed CDKA. Back then we played mainly for the Moscow championship.
In 1936, the team took part in the first Russian championship, but did not lose their laurels. But in the post-war years, the club became one of the leaders of the championships, competing with Dynamo. The “Team of Lieutenants” began to be called CDSA, since the Red Army was renamed the Soviet Army.
There was also a completely black page in the team’s history. In 1952, on the basis of the team, it was decided to create the country's Olympic team. At the Olympic tournament, the army team lost to the Yugoslav team in the 1/8 finals. Since the USSR had almost hostile relations with Yugoslavia at that time, the defeat was considered political and the team was disbanded. Parting with football lasted 2 years.
Later, in the Union and Russian championships, the club, under its current name, performed differently. There were periods of championship, and three times the team had to drop down to the first league.
The fans especially remembered the 1998 season. The army team started the tournament extremely poorly, suffering several defeats in a row. At least they appointed a young coach, Oleg Dolmatov, to save the team from another relegation. Under his leadership, the football team put together an impressive unbeaten streak and finished the season in 2nd place.
Since then, the team has been led by many talented mentors. Under the leadership of Valery Gazzaev, the army team even won the UEFA Cup. In total, this legendary football club has won 13 championships and 12 in the Cup.
3 FC "Znamya Truda" (Orekhovo-Zuevo) - founded in 1909
One of the oldest clubs in the country. It was founded in 1909 under the name Orekhovo Sports Club by English factory workers. He was a repeated champion of pre-revolutionary Moscow.
The team’s highest achievement already in Soviet times was reaching the Cup final, where the Orekhov team lost to Shakhtar Donetsk in 1962. Since then, Znamya Truda has remained the only finalist of the National Cup that has never played in the major league.
For some time the team played at the amateur level, periodically moving to the PFL level. However, the club has not yet achieved high achievements even at this level.
2 FC Chernomorets (Novorossiysk) – founded in 1907
The club was founded in 1907. Now he plays in the second division in the “South” zone with varying success, but there were times in the history of the team that were much more successful. Playing in the major league in 2000, the club took 6th place in the championship and received the right to play in the UEFA Cup.
There was no luck with the draw - the Novorossiysk team got the Spanish "Valencia" as their opponents. The result was predictable - 0:1 in the home match and 0:5 away.
Before the collapse of the USSR, the team played in the second league, but in the Russian championship it moved to the first.
From here, Chernomorets twice reached the top division, but could not stay there, eventually dropping even to the second league.
1 FC Kolomna – founded in 1906
The oldest existing Russian club. It was founded in 1906 at a local machine-building plant called “KGO”, which meant: Kolomna Gymnastics Society. A year later, the team held its first international match with football players from the British Sports Union and, by the way, won with a score of 3:1. In 1923, the club participated in the symbolic USSR Championship at the All-Union Physical Culture Festival in Moscow and won honorary bronze medals there.
FC Kolomna is recognized as the very first football team in Russia.
In the Russian and Union football championships, the club did not rise above the second league.
Table of RPL clubs by seniority - from oldest to newest
| Club name | Year of foundation |
|---|---|
| CSKA | August 27, 1911 |
| Spartak Moscow) | April 18, 1922 |
| Dynamo (Moscow) | April 18, 1923 |
| Lokomotiv (Moscow) | July 23, 1922 |
| Zenit (St. Petersburg) | May 25, 1925 |
| FC Rostov (Rostov-on-Don) | May 10, 1930 |
| FC Ural | 1930 |
| Wings of the Soviets (Samara) | April 12, 1942 |
| Akhmat (Grozny) | 1946 |
| Arsenal Tula | 1946 |
| Rubin Kazan) | April 20, 1958 |
| FC "Orenburg" | January 1, 1976 |
| FC Krasnodar | February 22, 2008 |
| Ufa | February 18, 2009 |
| Tambov | 2013 |
| PFC Sochi | July 4, 2018 |
When they talk about the oldest football club in Russia that has survived to this day, they usually say that it is FC "Znamya Truda" from Orekhovo-Zuevo, which was founded on November 16, 1909 by the English workers of the Morozov manufactory, the Charnock brothers, under the nameSports Club "Orekhovo" (KSO). KSO was at the beginning the strongest club since the founding of the Moscow Football League in 1909 and won the Moscow Championship in class "A" (R. Fulda Cup) in 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913...
For a general understanding of the issue, let me clarify that we are not just talking about the oldest football club in Russia, but about the oldest club in Russia that has survived and survived to this day, in which they play football professionally.
But there is at least one Russian Football Club that is ancient Sports Club "Orekhovo" ( CSR) and which has survived to this day:
This is the Kolomna Football Club, which was founded in 1906 as the Kolomna Gymnastic Society (KGO), a branch of the Russian Gymnastic Society (RGS), part of the Sokol Movement in Russia. The history of Kolomna football begins precisely in 1906, when the first football team, the KGO (Kolomenskoye Gymnastic Society), was created at the Struve brothers’ machine-building plant (Kolomensky Plant), a branch of the Russian Gymnastic Society. The uniform of the KGO team repeated the red and white colors of the Russian Geographical Society, but the emblem was different: red T-shirts with the KGO emblem and white shorts.
A year later, “KGO” played its first match with the players of the “British Sports Union” (BCS).This game took place in Yegoryevsk and ended in a victory for KGO 3:1.This is a very, very good result, considering that BCS, in which only the British played, was a strong team at that time and which was the winner of the first unofficial Moscow Championship in 1909. In the pre-revolutionary period, the Kolomna team was admitted to the Moscow Football League and the Football League of Dacha Clubs. In 1911, Kolomna had its own city league - the Kolomna Football League (KFL).
In 1909-1910, the Moscow Football League was organized in Moscow, which held the Moscow Championship. On the Moscow-Ryazan Railway, the Football League of Dacha Clubs held its competitions. The KGO football team was accepted into both leagues and played with the best teams in Moscow and the Moscow region: Union, KFS (Shiryaevo Pole - Sokolniki), BCS Moscow, SKL, SKS, Zamoskvoretsky Sports Club (ZKS), KSO (Orekhovo), etc. ...
Beginning of the 20th century. Football field of the Kolomna Gymnastics Society (KGO). This is where the origins of Kolomna football come from.
Kolomna football players have won the provincial championship and cup (Moscow challenge prize) more than once, and the “Silver Album” is a challenge provincial football prize. The lines from the then well-known magazine “Russian Sport” in the country for 1912 say a lot about the level of Kolomna football in those years: “We must not forget that on the periphery there are football teams that are not inferior in their class of play to the metropolitan teams, and, in particular, one of the strongest teams in the Kolomna district - the Kolomna Gymnastic Society - when playing with the famous KFS teams" , “SKL”, etc. often emerged victorious.”
After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the CFL suspended its operations. But football teams KGO ", "Olympus", and Awakening" continued their activities.After the revolution, in 1923, the Kolomna team took part in the first USSR championship, held as part of the first all-Union festival of physical culture in Moscow, where the Kolomna team did not get lost and were able to immediately make it to the semifinals, thus entering the top four strongest teams in the country.
POST-WAR HISTORY
For the first time in the post-war years, football Kolomna was represented on the all-Union arena by the Dzerzhinets team in 1948. The locomotive builders spent two seasons in the second group, taking, respectively, 9th and 10th places among 14 teams. After that, “Dzerzhinets” for 11 years participated only in the championships of the society and the Moscow region.
In 1960, the team of the diesel locomotive plant, Avangard, returned to the all-Union arena in class B, where they spent eight seasons from 1960 to 1969, with a break in 1961-62. The best result of the performance was 4th place in 1964. After the reform of the country’s football industry in 1970 (then class “B” was abolished), diesel locomotive builders completely lost their place in all-Union competitions. The team began to play for the Moscow Region Championship in the top group, but soon slipped into the second.
At this time, another team from the Oka Heavy Machine Tool Plant (ZTS) took leading roles in the city. Machine tool builders are five-time champions of the Moscow region, five-time winners of the Moscow Region Cup and six-time winners of the cosmonaut prize V.N. Volkov. In 1988, Oka became the winner of the zonal KFC championship tournament and 20 years later returned big-time football to the city, debuting in 1989 in the second union league. And in 1990, the revival of Avangard began. The confrontation between the two Kolomna teams led to the fact that in the first Russian championship in 1992, both clubs started in the same zone of the second league and finished next door. In four more Russian championships, Kolomna was represented by both teams, the best result of the performances was 2nd place taken by Avangard in 1993.
CHANGE OF NAMES OF THE CLUB KGO (Kolomenskoe Hymanistic Society) - VANGUARD:
1906-1919 “KGO” (Kolomenskoye Gymnastic Society)
1919-1923 “SFK” (Golutvin Section of Physical Culture)
1923-1936 “KFK” (Physical Culture Circle)
1936-1942 “Dzerzhinets”
1942-1945 "Tractor"
1945-1952 “Dzerzhinets”
1953-1993 "Vanguard"
1993 — “Victor-Avangard”
1994—1997 Avangard-Kortek
APPEARANCE OF FC "KOLOMNA"
Before the start of the 1997 season, the municipal football club "Kolomna" was created in Kolomna, which united two Kolomna teams: FC Avangard, founded in 1906 as the KGO (Kolomenskoye Gymnastic Society), and FC Oka, founded in 1923. like CLIF(Football Fans Club). And before the start of the 1998 season, FC Kolomna teamed up with the Gigant team (Voskresensk), the 1997 Russian champion among amateur football clubs in the Moscow Region zone.
Kolomna's last major achievement came in 1999, when the club took second place in the second division. Then came the decline of the team, in 2000 - 12th place. According to the results of the 2001 championship, Kolomna (19th place out of 20 teams) was supposed to leave professional football, but by the decision of the PFL, the Kolomna team was left in the Center zone. But the next season, finishing 18th out of 20 teams, the club lost its place in the second division and is now forced to compete in the amateur teams tournament...
Later, FC Kolomna spent ten seasons in the third division, where the best result was sixth place (2008, 2011/2012) and reaching the final of the Moscow Region Cup (2011/2012, 2012).
In 2012, it was decided to hold the exercise therapy championship in the Moscow Region zone in one round. Kolomna has strengthened itself with a number of non-resident football players who have experience playing in higher leagues. In addition, the club's students showed themselves quite brightly. This season, the team managed to reach the final of the Amateur Cup for the second time in a row and the Kolomna team lost in a bitter fight in a penalty shootout to Shchelkovo’s Sparta, and also, most importantly, took first place in the championship and, based on sporting principles, rose to the second division.
In the first season after returning to professional football, the club's roster was completely renewed, and the team started well: in the first part of the championship, they lost only twice at home. However, with the arrival of the new head coach, Eduard Demin, she completely failed the spring segment of the championship, achieving only one victory - in the last match, the principal rival “Znamya Truda” was beaten with a minimal score. The final thirteenth place out of seventeen participants, a club with one of the poorest budgets, was considered satisfactory.
The club spent the 2015/16 season extremely unsuccessfully: taking last place, in 28 matches of the Russian Football Championship in the “West” zone, only two victories were won. In total, only 10 points were scored - exactly half as many as their closest rival, Karelia Petrozavodsk (20). Towards the end of the season, on May 1, head coach Vladimir Bondarenko left the team. On May 23, he was replaced by ex-head coach of Podillya Alexander Bodrov. In the period before Bodrov's appointment, former club player Sergei Piskarev was the acting head coach of the team.
September 18, 12016. Football match "Dynamo-2" (Moscow) - FC "Kolomna" (Kolomna) 1:1
On May 25, it became known that Kolomna had successfully completed the licensing procedure and was allowed to participate in the PFL Championship and the Russian Cup in the 2016/2017 season. At the moment, FC Kolomna occupies the penultimate place (13 out of 14) in the Second League of the PFL (Zone "West")...
